When a television is initially installed in a user's home after purchase, the tuners of the TV search for what channels are available in the area. Such automatic search and tuning is referred to as “autoprogramming”. Upon completion of the search, the television possesses a channel map that indicates which frequencies/channels are available for subsequent tuning when a user selects a channel.
After autoprogramming, a user can edit channels on the channel map to, e.g., put the channels on a favorite list, or a skip list, or to label the channels, etc. However, with the advent of digital televisions and hundreds of channels (2-69 for terrestrial broadcast in the U.S. and 1-125 for cable), digital ones of which might in fact carry several sub-channels, sorting through the edit list can consume an inordinate amount of time. The present invention recognizes that while analog channels might require initial editing once only, digital channels, which might carry sub-channels, can be reconfigured with, e.g., more sub-channels than were originally edited, thus requiring additional editing. Further, digital terrestrial reception quality can vary over time and can also depend on the orientation of the antenna, potentially requiring further editing. A user, however, must still sort through the complete list of all digital and analog channels. The present invention provides the solution herein to ease this burden on the user.